A Fine Wine Would Be In Order

A Fine Wine Would Be In Order

Noel Laflin

5-17-18

I met a young man named Tom Pistulka, forty years ago today.

He was twenty and I was twenty-five in the spring of 1978.

Over the next eight years he taught me the finer points of gardening, pond and fountain building, caring for koi, and the importance of cross-pollinating to ensure a better plum crop.

In return, I guided him toward the pleasure of reading a good novel.  Up until then, he’d only read technical journals.  He would soon be out-reading me with the likes of Mary Renault and other great authors.

Our homes were always eclectic environments filled with large fish aquariums, bird aviaries, Tom’s artwork, and hundreds of orchids.  We held parties nearly every weekend.

 

We served a sacred punch on high holidays – like the winter and summer solstice and autumnal and spring equinoxes.

Tom was a little heathen at heart, but loved Christmas.  I adopted his pagan ways.

We’d go to the Old Spaghetti Factory on Balboa Island each May 17^th and order a bottle of Petite Sirah to accompany the meal – okay, perhaps two bottles of Petite Sirah - as that was the wine we drank upon our first meeting.

Like too many, we grew apart somewhere in the mid-eighties and became distant for a while.

But when he grew ill in the early nineties, we bonded once more.

I cared for his garden in Ojai when he could not summon the energy to do so.

I slowly walked with him when he wanted to show me a particular giant oak under which he wanted his ashes spread as his departure was drawing near. I was reminded of ‘The Little Prince’ about to summon the snake.  I did not share the thought with Tom.  I was too sad to do so.

I overheard him talking with Jesus when delirium was setting in.

And then Tom died way too soon at age thirty-five on the morning of Christmas Eve, perhaps the day he loved most.

I wish he were still around so that he might come by – today of all days – so that we might reminisce and he could see our garden – the one he laid out some thirty-five years ago.  I’d show him the hummingbird nest in the acacia tree we planted that first year.  He’d be amazed how big that tree is now.

I would tell him how the wild raccoons still pester the koi.  I would ask  his opinion on several gardening questions and plant identification. I would want to know what his latest art projects entailed and how his own, no doubt fabulous, garden was faring.

In return, I’d recommend some good books and show him lots of hummingbird pictures – especially ones taken in the acacia tree.

We’d be two old friends toasting fine memories in the shade of that tree.  A good bottle of Petite Sirah, would be in order.